Lynch hoping bombing will not deter primary voters

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US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, whose primary victory on Sept. 11, 2001, secured his seat in Congress, said on Friday that he worries whether the patriotic surge that exploded voter turnout that day will echo next Tuesday, when voters in both parties will choose their nominees.

Lynch, speaking with the Globe during a commuter rail ride to Norwood for campaign stops, recalled how voters were trickling to the polls early in the afternoon of the terrorist attacks, as he vied in a competitive Democratic primary to succeed the late congressman Joe Moakley.

But a press conference featuring Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift and Democratic Attorney General Thomas Reilly urging voters in the district to go to the polls, Lynch said, helped spike turnout to more than twice what analysts had predicted.

“I don’t know if that rally cry will be out there this time,” Lynch said. “I’m not sure that’s how people will respond.”

Nevertheless, asked for turnout and outcome predictions, Lynch forecast 23 percent turnout and, for himself, a 5-point victory. Both predictions exceed those held privately by both Lynch supporters and by Democrats unaffiliated with either campaign.

Lynch said his campaign had detected unexpectedly strong support in the state’s midsize cities, such as New Bedford, Fall River, Everett, and Lawrence.

His primary rival, US Representative Edward J. Markey, declined to give a projection for either the number of voters who will participate or the race’s outcome.

Like Lynch, Markey expressed hope that voters next Tuesday would respond to the Boston Marathon bombings by hitting the polls.

Markey, in a telephone interview on Friday, said, “I’m working very hard to get the highest possible vote out. And I’m hoping it’s going to be a very high turnout.”

Lynch and Markey are competing to face the winner of the Republican primary. Investor and former Navy SEAL Gabriel E. Gomez, former US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, and state Representative Daniel P. Winslow are the GOP candidates.

— JIM O’SULLIVAN

Sullivan calls for revocation of Tsarnaev’s citizenship

US Senate candidate Michael J. Sullivan, a Republican, called again Friday for revoking the citizenship of the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings so that he can be treated as an enemy combatant, following news reports that Dzokhar Tsarnaev stopped sharing information after he was read his Miranda rights.

“Tsarnaev acted as an enemy combatant in carrying out terrorist acts against our people. He should have been treated as an enemy combatant, including interrogation and detention by our military officials,” he said in a statement. “Only then would we be in a position to decide whether to release him into the civilian court system.”

Sullivan argued that Tsarnaev’s citizenship could be voided because he may have been plotting against America even when he took the oath of citizenship last year in Boston.

“Our first concern must always be preventing future terrorist acts against our people,” said Sullivan. “In most, if not all cases, terrorists should not be immediately allowed to enter our civil court system.”

Republican lawmakers had been pushing for the suspect to be treated as an enemy combatant so that he could be questioned without a lawyer and other protections of the criminal justice system. But Tsarnaev is a naturalized citizen of the United States, and authorities, while delaying the charges for interrogation without a lawyer, said he had to be read his rights and criminally charged.

It was unclear on Friday how Sullivan was proposing that the case proceed now that Tsarnaev has already been read his rights and interrogated. Sullivan’s spokeswoman declined to make him available for comment.

“It was a mistake to immediately afford him Miranda rights,” Sullivan said. “Instead, he should have been held in military custody, and interrogated for intelligence to protect our nation from additional terrorist attacks.”

Sullivan is a former US attorney and former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. During his tenure, he led the prosecution of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in federal courts. However, he said the Reid prosecution occurred before the protocol for military tribunals was available.

— STEPHANIE EBBERT

Ex-SEAL group fund-raising for former colleague GomezA group of former Navy SEALs and intelligence officers is asking for donations for one of their former colleagues, Senate candidate Gabriel E. Gomez, a Republican, saying his victory in the special election would deliver “a devastating blow to Barack Obama’s agenda.”

The fund-raising letter from the group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund, bashes Obama for his “sheer arrogance” and “radically liberal agenda.”

“This is no game,” writes Ryan K. Zinke, the group’s chairman, in a letter that asks donors to give up to $5,000 to Gomez’s campaign. “We are fighting for the very survival of the nation you and I love.”

Gomez, a former Navy SEAL, was a spokesman for the conservative group during the 2012 presidential election, when it accused Obama of exploiting the killing of Osama bin Laden and endangering troops for political purpose.

But the group’s fiercely anti-Obama rhetoric stands in sharp contrast to the letter Gomez sent to Governor Deval Patrick in January, asking the Democratic governor to appoint him interim senator.

In that letter, Gomez said he supported Obama in 2008 and pledged to support the president’s positions on gun control and immigration in the Senate. Gomez also argued that, instead of delivering a blow to Obama’s agenda, his service in the Senate “would be good for the Democrats as well, since it is in everyone’s interest to have the two parties at the negotiating table.”

— MICHAEL LEVENSON

Markey’s camp scrambling to sort out endorsementsEdward J. Markey’s Senate campaign said Friday evening it is checking a list of endorsements after three state lawmakers said they were erroneously included on that roster of supporters

“We apologize for any errors that may have occurred while releasing our list of endorsements,” press secretary Andrew Zucker said in a statement.

“Ed is still tremendously proud to have the support of countless state and local elected officials across the Commonwealth, and remains committed to fighting to defend the historic health care reform law, protecting a woman’s right to choose, and being a leader on national security issues in the Senate.”

The campaign had earlier stood by its claim that its list of 100 state and local elected officials endorsing Markey was accurate. But three state representatives said they had not endorsed him.

A member of Markey’s staff said the campaign is going through the endorsement list to verify the names.